1050. Trainwreck (2015)

Starring: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson

Director: Judd Apatow

Running Time: 126 mins

Trainwreck is an American film about a woman who doesn’t believe in the possibility of monogamy, until she meets one man who she falls in love with, convincing her to change her ways.

Judd Apatow, director of modern comedy hits such as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, has done another sterling job with Trainwreck. Although it may not be his most riotously funny film, it’s both an entertaining and heartfelt story that you will undoubtedly enjoy.

Let’s start with the most important part of the whole film, the humour, and it is fantastic. The first hour of the film is a brilliant laughter-fest, with jokes galore left, right and centre, almost all of them guaranteed to land and give you a good chuckle.

Amy Schumer is immediately likeable and funny here, with her promiscuous character being surprisingly understandable (thanks to a hilarious opening scene explaining her background), and that makes such a difference to enjoying the multitude of gags that are thrown at you in the opening stages.

The other impressive thing about the first half of this film is that the characterisation is fantastic. Everybody seems like a real person, with their own individual motives for everything they do, and that’s what makes it such a surprisingly convincing and engrossing romantic comedy, because you can understand and genuinely empathise with each character.

However, the main reason that this isn’t an absolutely incredible film comes about in the second half. Normally, Apatow’s films are consistently jokey all the way through, with some drama woven within, however this takes a less comedic approach towards the dramatic side of it all.

That’s not to say that the drama in this film is boring, far from it, however the story loses its really enjoyable vibe in the second half when the relationship and romance becomes the main focus, and at a running time of 126 minutes, it can drag a little.

In the end, there are jokes everywhere you look here, and an interesting dramatic story in the latter stages to boot, however this isn’t a consistently enjoyable watch because of its uneven balance between comedy and drama, as well as its somewhat overlong running time, so that’s why it gets a 7.3 from me.